Is there an easy way to select a specific number of one type of unit out of a group?

What I mean is, say I have 10 Stalkers in a group, I want to select 4 of them and have them go check something out. I have to hold shift and click 4 of them individually or draw a box. Sometimes during a battle though or when timing is critical this can be very clumsy as the units could be running all over and be mixed in with other units.

Is there any way that I could say, hold some key combination and simply single click the same unit repeatedly and with each click it would add another nearby unit of that same type to my selection? Or something like that?

3 Answers
3

Using your example, you could double click or Ctrl + click on a Stalker to select all of them and then Shift + click the left-most Stalker listed on the HUD six times. This would remove six Stalkers from the originally selected ten. Whether this is any less cumbersome, you be the judge.

Instead of doing subtraction to know
to click six times, find the fifth
stalker, (number you want + 1) and
repeatedly shift click that one until
there is no fifth stalker.

ah this would be very close to what I want but instead of clicking 4 times to select 4 out of 12 stalkers I would need to click 8 times if I am not mistaken, good call though
–
ioSamuraiSep 24 '10 at 13:44

7

Instead of doing subtraction to know to click six times, find the fifth stalker, (number you want + 1) and repeatedly shift click that one until there is no fifth stalker.
–
ILMTitanSep 24 '10 at 14:46

oh snap @Titan, you just made this the answer, well done
–
ioSamuraiSep 25 '10 at 1:03

This one is a very good complement. Often, your ten stalkers are in a group and the fours should be removed from that group. Just CTRL+X at the end to remove the four stalkers from the initial group.
–
thariboJun 1 '12 at 16:37

I think your best bet is to use a combination of all the tricks you have available to you to select the units you want. For example, if you box a couple Stalkers, but you only get 3, you can shift+click another one. If you got 5, you can shift+click one of the ones you have (this even works if you click on their icons in the bottom of the screen where it shows which units are selected).

There is nothing to do what you suggested, but there are so many options relating to selecting and de-selecting units that with a little creativity you can work around it.